


say everything you didn’t say

by prettydizzeed



Category: Camp Rock (Movies)
Genre: Campfires, F/F, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Getting Together, Holding Hands, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Summer Camp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:49:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29730693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettydizzeed/pseuds/prettydizzeed
Summary: It’s the last night of camp; the stage lights are off and the stars are out and Brown is pretending he doesn’t know about the traditional campers-only campfire.
Relationships: Barron James/Sander Loya, Ella Pador/Margaret “Peggy” Dupree, Mitchie Torres/Caitlyn Gellar, Nate Gray & Jason Gray, Shane Gray/Andy Hosten, Tess Tyler & TJ Tyler
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	say everything you didn’t say

**Author's Note:**

> watched camp rock for the first time in ages & adhd brain go brrrr

Ella tips her head into Peggy’s, smiling like she hasn’t since Mitchie moved out of their cabin and Tess started being more demanding than usual and the summer generally went to shit. But this, this is the best outcome, Peggy pressed into her side with Ella’s arm around her back, the warmth of the traditional final night campers-only campfire that Brown pretends not to know about flickering against her cheeks. Sander is tucked into Barron’s arm like this, too, but that’s different, because they’re—well, Ella’s been picking up on that vibe since she met them, the year before Peggy arrived and Tess plucked them both out of vaguely upper-class anonymity to be her underlings, and she’s glad it finally seems like someone took their own advice. Speaking of which, though— 

“Hey, Peggy?” she says, and Peggy turns her head to look up at her. Their faces are, like, _so_ close, it almost makes her lose her nerve. 

“Hmm?”

“You’re wearing that no-smear lipstick I got you for Christmas, right?” 

Peggy’s brow wrinkles. That’s okay; Ella will buy her a cream for it if it gets to be a problem. “Yeah, why?”

Ella breathes out a sigh of relief. “Okay, great, because I was going to ask to kiss you but that shade does _not_ go with my outfit.”

Peggy laughs, something startled and breathless, and her hand touches the side of Ella’s face in a way that’s totally different to when she’s scooping her hair back to braid or brushing Ella’s body glitter across her cheekbones for her. Her lips touch Ella’s and she thinks yes, this goes _perfectly_ together.

*

“Hey, man,” Shane says, hands in his pockets. You’re cool, dude. You’re a rock star. Nothing can phase you. 

“Hey,” Andy says, looking up, and Shane swallows hard. 

“This seat taken?” he asks, and Andy grins, raises his eyebrows.

“You want in on this prime piece of log real estate? Okay, man, but it’ll cost you.”

“Oh, I didn’t know this was the VIP section,” Shane teases, lowering himself down onto the fallen tree, and Andy nudges him. Shane holds himself as still as he can, doesn’t let his body react to it. 

You’re cool, you’re a rock star, you’ve got stage presence coming out the ass. Every teen magazine in the world thinks you’re America’s Most Wanted. You’ve performed for tens of thousands, like, crowds bigger than your hometown, you can talk to a fucking guy and _not_ lean into his arm like a weirdo.

“Totally,” Andy says, giving a sweeping gesture to the scattered clusters of teenagers around them, the fire in front of them. “Far enough from everybody that you can’t hear any kissing or crying, close enough to the fire to prevent any lake chill in your bones, and _far_ enough from the fire that you won’t be the first to die if someone’s Boy Scout experience isn’t up to par and it spreads.”

Shane snorts, shaking his head. “I’m sure my insurance agent will thank me.”

That is _so_ not a normal thing to say, he thinks, and grimaces into the dark. “Listen, uh, I just wanted to say great job out there tonight, man. You really killed it, I had a lot of fun working with you.” 

“Thanks,” Andy says, “me, too. And, uh, you did great, congratulations on getting the girl.”

“Oh, Mitchie? Yeah, it was great to start off on the right foot, I’m glad I got to thank her for inspiring the new sound. We went on a boat ride earlier, actually, it was great to talk some stuff out.”

“Yeah,” Andy says, but his voice sounds the way it did that first (well, second, or at least it should have been) day of class, when Shane asked if he was a drummer. Embarrassed and a little flat, like he’s trying to shove all his vibrancy down into something acceptable. He’d told Shane about that, some, how his school never knew what to do with the kid who could keep quiet but not sit still, how having a white teacher always meant he’d end up in the principal’s office sooner rather than later. _I’ll buy the building,_ Shane had wanted to say, _I’ll fucking burn it down,_ the temper wasn’t an act even if everything else was and he’s never had more of a reason to use it, but he knows that won’t fix everything. 

“What’s up?” Shane asks, and the firelight catches on the corner of Andy’s mouth, the way he’s raised it to twist wryly at himself.

“Nothing, man, it’s just… Kinda thought I had a chance, you know? Even though you asked me to get everyone talking about how you were looking for this girl. Stupid, right?”

“No,” Shane says, breath stuck in his throat like when he’s just finished a set, heart pounding with just as much adrenaline. “No, it’s not stupid.”

Andy turns his head towards him in question and Shane answers it, hand clasped at the back of his neck, fingers sore like they haven’t been since that summer he first learned to play the guitar. “I, uh,” he says, touching their foreheads together, “I learned a lot about myself this summer,” and Andy’s fingers tap out a drum beat against Shane’s palm for the rest of the night.

*

Tess is not a spoiled little rich girl, okay, not at her _depths,_ she can totally deal with not winning Final Jam and her mom turning away after the last performance like she couldn’t bear to meet her eyes and Shane Gray choosing Mitchie over her—except maybe not? They were looking really pal-y when they got off that boat this evening, not like two people who’d wanted to get some privacy for the normal reasons—and with the most important weeks of her year having absolutely nothing to show for them. She only has so many teenage summers, right, before her mom’s restriction on her publicity as a minor expires and it’s tours and press and record labels 24/7, no time for childish shit like campfires and pajama parties. And she’s ready for that, she is, she can’t wait, but—

She can’t help thinking about it, another summer over and gone, just like that, youth she’ll never get back or whatever people are always singing about. She never even ate a fucking s’more. 

“Just take me to the airport,” she tells her driver, her mom having already left hours ago. Someone will get her bags in the morning, and the driver can message Brown. It’s whatever. It’s not like anyone will notice she’s gone. 

The apartment echoes when she gets in, all clean lines and empty open floor. They used to have a dish where she could put her house key, once, when she was little, maybe seven or eight. She’d wear it on a sparkly necklace all day and then leave it by the door when she got home. Then Mom got signed to her new label and won her first Grammy and the rest is history, right, a charm bracelet on her wrist and an empty chair at every event and a house decorated by some designer out in LA. 

There’s a light on in the bathroom, which is weird because they’re supposed to be on timers, but makes a lot more sense when the door opens and TJ Tyler walks into the kitchen in sweatpants and an old concert t-shirt—someone she used to listen to in college, not one of her own. She looks a lot more like a mom than a pop star like this, but that’s a thought Tess has long since learned to stop trusting. 

“Oh, you’re back early, sweetie,” Mom says, reaching for a mug on the counter rather than her phone. “What about the, uh, bonfire, did it get rained out?”

Tess shrugs. “Didn’t want smoke in my hair.”

Mom looks at her for a second but doesn’t question it. She looks at her phone, and Tess is almost relieved; better to scare off any budding hopes for good. “Well, I’ve got one of those horrible post-tour wrapup meetings in the morning, but,” her phone beeps, and she checks it and nods in confirmation, “Jenna’s given me the night off, so. What do you say, takeout from Ellipse?”

Tess bites her lip. She’s got all this time escaping between her fingers and nothing—no one—to show for it but herself, reflected over and over in a dizzying and lonely spiral. 

“Actually,” she says, looking at her nails while she does it because any closer to her mom’s gaze is absolutely out of the question, “I was wondering if we could make that soup you used to? With the three beans?” 

“Oh,” her mom says, and then she smiles. “Still in the camp mood, huh? I can remember packing this on thermoses before taking your Girl Scout troop out for the weekend. Hey, why not some s’mores, too, while we’re at it?”

TJ Tyler dusts her hands off and starts rummaging through her expensively-shelved pantry, and in the kitchen, TJ Tyler’s biggest fan sets her shoulders and checks her makeup and commends herself on how well she can hide that out of nowhere she’s been poured full of everything she’s needed for years. 

*

“Here,” Nate says, shoving something into Jason’s chest, “Managed to throw this together in the garage when you weren’t following me around like a lost puppy,” and Jason looks down at the birdhouse and beams. 

*

“So,” Sander says, plopping down onto the log beside Barron and rubbing at the side of his mouth the way he does when he’s nervous but wants to look cool, “Lola said she thought it over and she’s willing to give me a shot.”

“Oh, shit,” Barron says, and if his voice sounds funny, it’s because his mouth is still half-full of s’more. “Congrats, man.”

“Yeah, but here’s the thing,” Sander says, and fuck, he’s going to get all self-deprecating and try to talk himself out of it and Barron is going to have to convince his best friend and maybe-but-it’s-whatever-first-love to go after the girl of his dreams, and there is not enough chocolate in the world to cope with that. “Like, I was thinking about the song, right, and how everybody was telling us how much it meant to them, this reminder to, like, not have any regrets, you know?” Barron nods. “So I was thinking—I don’t want to leave anything unsaid, like, here, either.” He gestures between them. 

Barron tilts his head. “Dude, I’m not gonna get mad at you for getting together with Lola. You know I wasn’t even really into her like that, like, I was just playing along for the gag at this point.”

“No, I know, I meant like—” Sander sighs, kicking his foot out at the ground, uncharacteristically hesitant. “Like, you’re my best friend. And I’m not going to see you for ten and a half months. So you’ll have time to get over it if you freak out when I tell you I like you.”

Barron’s joints seem to process the words before his brain does, his hand falling to the side, his jaw dropping open. “I—shit. _Shit,_ man.”

“That bad, huh?”

Barron snorts. “Dude, you know I’ve been in love with you since we were like twelve.”

Sander, frighteningly, is silent for a moment. “I do now,” he says finally, and Barron laughs.

“You’re so fucking oblivious,” he says, and if it comes out affectionate as hell, hey, that’s apparently his prerogative now.

*

“Best producer _ever,_ ” Mitchie says, throwing her arms around Caitlyn’s neck, and Caitlyn doesn’t want to think too long about what it means that she’s familiar enough with the feeling of Mitchie’s weight to not stagger back at the addition. 

“I’ll be sure to quote you on the website,” Caitlyn says. “You know, since you’re gonna be famous.”

Mitchie scoffs. “I didn’t win Final Jam.”

Caitlyn absolutely does not say some sappy shit about Mitchie being a winner to her. Instead, she brings herself back to reality: “I meant for being Shane Gray’s girlfriend.”

“Oh, god, people probably are gonna think that,” Mitchie says, grimacing. “I guess the whole ‘mystery girl’ Cinderella situation kinda gave off those vibes.”

Caitlyn blinks. “Wait, so you and Shane aren’t—”

“Shane Gray didn’t watch me humiliate myself by falling on my ass in the kitchen and getting dramatically exposed as a poser while soaking in mop water and then talk to me when no one else would even look in my direction _and_ make me sound fucking amazing after the end of Final Jam.”

“But—I did all those things,” Caitlyn says, pointing at herself, tilting her head, and it’s kind of a joke but also kind of the most serious she’s ever been. 

“Yeah,” Mitchie says, taking her hand, interlocking their fingers the way hers and Shane Gray’s had been earlier today except not the same at all, gentler, more weighty, “you did.” 

**Author's Note:**

> i’m on tumblr @campgender (no relation to camp rock gender), hmu with gay DCOM thoughts!


End file.
